


Splinters of Night

by Paper0wl



Series: Rod and Shield [26]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Mrs. Cardenas Lives!, NYC Traffic is a Nightmare, Right Place at the Right Time, Trouble Adjusting, anger issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-10-10 00:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper0wl/pseuds/Paper0wl
Summary: When Morningstar saved Dean from becoming one more deceased sperm donor for the Amazons, she threw centuries of tradition out the window. Some of the Amazons are having trouble adjusting.Some of the Amazons think Hell's Kitchen is a lot more interesting than dealing with college frat boys.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't post anything at all for R&S in 2018. I think I've spent like 3 years fighting with Age of Ultron now. Fun times. It doesn't help that I'm back to writing out of order. Cleaning up this while cleaning up Age of Ultron while writing post-AoU and starting to draft CW and getting really into post-CW. So. Yeah. Happy 2019?

 "Fucking useless piece of defective shit! Reacquire your fucking signal already and tell me how to drive through this fucking city!" Melanie cursed vehemently.

 "You're certainly having fun," her sister remarked, laughter coming through the phone speaker irritatingly clear.

 "Go fuck yourself, Kat,"

 "You know, if you couldn't be sociable, you could've just joined the campaign. You've certainly go the profanity for it."

 "That's not the _new direction_ ," Melanie practically growled.

 "Well, I can see how well that's working out. Stabbed any more frat boys?"

 That time Melanie _did_ growl. "Fucking assholes!"

 "They hit on you. I'm pretty sure they don't swing that way."

 "Fuck you too, Kat!"

 "At this point, I'm thinking you might be better off just telling them to fuck off. I mean, you're pretty good at it, and all this misplaced aggression can't be healthy."

 "It's not misplaced aggression! It's this fucking city with its fucking traffic lights and too many fucking cars to get through the fucking traffic lights and fucking pedestrians who secretly have a fucking death wish because they walk against the fucking light and then fucking glare at me when I honk at them to fucking move! And this fucking car's fucking navigation system is a fucking piece of shit!"

 "Which car are you in?"

 "I don't fucking know. I took whatever was easiest to get out of the fucking garage! And its computer is fucking useless!"

 "Well," Kat said with the smart-ass patience that came from being the youngest of the five girls, "it kind of makes a difference. Because if you're in one of the hybrids - and we've got a _lot_  of hybrids these days - Legion's shop tricked them out and gas mileage is excellent but the electrical systems are almost as temperamental as you."

 Clenching her jaw, Melanie took several slow, angry breaths, reminding herself that she couldn't kill her sister over the phone. "I haven't needed to buy gas since I left Archangel," she bit out from between clenched teeth.

 "There you go then," Kat replied far too cheerfully. "Considering the Scorpion hybrids are kinda taking over the motor pool, you might know these things if you came out from under your Angry Rock once in a while."

 She hated that Kat had a point. But Legion's cars were connected to Legion's mechanics and the head mechanic was one of those things she preferred to not think about. At all. Unfortunately, living under a rock wasn't actually possible with the tribe making up the backbone for the new Legion of "ninjas." 

 "Fucking Morningstar!" Melanie growled, hitting the dashboard hard enough to dent. When that wasn't enough, she put her mouth to her sleeve and screamed.

 "Feel better?" Kat asked after everything fell silent - what passed for silent in this city anyway; Melanie heard three different arguments and four televisions. And something that might be a rat in the sewer under her - _shitty_ \- car.

 "A little," she admitted.

 "Where are you?"

 "Somewhere in New York City."

 "Yeah, I figured _that_ ," Kat retorted. "I was hoping for a little more specific than that."

 "I don't know. I got frustrated with the traffic and drove away."

 "You turned randomly and gunned it to the most deserted streets you could find, didn't you?"

 ". . . maybe."

 "Wow, Mel. That's . . . exactly why I'm so very, very grateful Rachel is older than you."

 "By four days."

 "Still the eldest."

 "Not that it matters anymore," Melanie said, and then grimaced because that came out harsher than she intended and wow, way to hit a very sore spot for (almost) their entire generation.

 In the (relative) silence that fell, Melanie tried to distract herself by watching the little old lady with wavy gray hair entered the apartment across the street. Old ladies, even human ones, were something to value and (usually) respect.

 "Where are you?" Kat said finally.

 "I told you -"

 "Find a street sign or landmark or something!"

 "You're bossy for the younge-er sister," Melanie grumbled, narrowly avoiding putting her foot back in her mouth.

 " _Someone_ has to keep you from disgracing the tribe," Kat retorted, which was really annoying but, okay, maybe it was a little true that Melanie was having the hardest time out of all the defunct girls in their generation, despite having arguably less reason than, say, Rachel, as the eldest, or Kat, as the last before it all came to a screeching halt.

 "Weren't you just telling me to tell the matrons to fuck off?"

 "It'd be cathartic, not disgraceful. If anyone was gonna do it, I'd put money on it being you."

 "Thanks." She let out a long, low breath, and tried to ignore six televisions, four arguments, two distant sirens, and an annoying yappy dog. "Not disgraceful, huh?"

 "We're warriors," Kat said guilelessly. "What do they expect?"

 Mel snorted. "Next time I fuck something up, I'll be sure to tell them that. And when Madeline looks _more_ pissed, I'll tell her you told me to say so."

 Kat snickered. "C'mon. Enough stalling. Landmark me."

 "I can't make out the street signs," what with the spray paint and broken street lights, "but I'm parked in front of a burnt out building. Recently burned by the looks of it."

 "You haven't watched the news recently have you?"

 "No. Was I supposed to?" No answer. "Kat, what are you talking about?"

 "Congratulations, Mel, you got yourself lost in Hell's Kitchen, where blown up buildings are blamed on some guy in a mask beating people up, and some bald guy who's really full of himself gets on TV and blows hot air about it."

 "Sounds more interesting than anything I've been doing lately," Melanie said, intrigued, mostly because it beat being bored or frustrated..

 "I don't know," Kat replied, "beating the shit out of dumb college frat boys sounds pretty interesting."

 "Just because we have to co-exist with idiot males, doesn't mean I want to speak with them, nor should I have to put up with them touching me when I ignore their pathetic and transparent to flatter their way into my pants. Because that was never happening."

 "Well, yes," Kat agreed, "but that doesn't make Madeline any happier about having to convince everyone not to press charges. There's enough anxiety over the new fertility experiment without having to pull you out of school in the middle of it."

 "He shouldn't have touched me. He's lucky he still has his hand - and his dick."

 "No argument from me," Kat said.

 Melanie breathed into the silence. Another argument started and in the lulls of Kat's breath she thought she heard someone get stabbed.

 It was a sliding squish with a sudden intake of breath.

 For one bred for war, it was a very distinctive sound.

 For one of an all-female tribe bred for war, the gasp of a  _female_  stabbing victim was akin to a call to arms.

 Melanie burst out of her car, ran across the street, broke down the door of the building, and took the stairs two at a time. She used her momentum to charge a foul smelling man and knock him away from the woman she'd seen enter the building just a short while before. His knife scraped along her arm and she hissed, eyes turning red.

 "I diddin sign up fuh this, man," he whined, staggering away. Shaking his head, he grabbed the woman's fallen purse and ran for the stairs.

 Right hand clutched to bleeding arm, Melanie considered chasing after the wretched, rotting bastard, but the old woman was injured and it was ingrained in her DNA that _women are more important_. Pulling off her (now ruined) sweater, she used the material to apply pressure to the woman's stab wounds.

 "Please don't die," Melanie told her. "I've had a really fucking bad day and you bleeding to death under my hands would just make it suck that much harder."

 The woman responded in faint but offended Spanglish. Melanie thought it was a Guatemalan accent. Language was one of the more useful, not-combative, things she acquired through genetic memory.

  _"If you want to offer commentary on my language,"_ she replied in Spanish, _"you can't die on me."_

  _"I am an old woman. You should tend your own injury before worrying about me."_

  _"Not to be ruder than you already think I am, but I'm younger and stronger and this is nothing. This is a papercut. I've had worse in training. Also, don't talk like that. I told you - you're not going to die on me. If you try - I know people who know an archangel who probably wouldn't object to hunting you down and peppering your afterlife with all sorts of creative profanity._ " Which, okay, maybe that was both an exaggeration and rather terrible as well, but, hey. From the stories she'd heard, Gabriel took all sorts of perverse enjoyment in being an obnoxious pain in the ass. He was also enough of an asshole to deliberately annoy a harmless old lady.

 The woman _tsk_ -ed, though whether that was for what she probably thought was blasphemy or whether she thought Melanie was lying was unclear.

 A nearby apartment door opened. " _I called for an ambulance_ ," the male, Latino, mid-forties, and badly in need of a bath, said. _"I heard you knock him down. Thank you."_

 Melanie was too preoccupied with keeping the woman's blood in her body to compose a reply, though she absently thanked him when he brought out a towel she could use to bolster the red, sodden sweater.

  _"You remind me of someone who lived down the block from me as a girl,"_ the woman remarked faintly.

  _"Tell me about her,"_ Melanie said. Talking about her childhood would keep her from talking about dying. She was female and an elder - Melanie wouldn't let her die if she could help it.

  _"I only knew Madeline a few days but I remember her eyes. You have her eyes. Old eyes. Too old for your face and so angry."_ She trailed off.

  _"I know a Madeline_ ," Melanie prompted. She seriously doubted it was the same Madeline, but it would keep her awake and talking. _"She's our family matriarch. Rules us all with an iron, yet benevolent, fist."_

  _"Mhmm. Sounds like Maddy._ __She was always so focused. Angry, but focused. Fierce. I always knew she was destined for great things."__

  _"Am I angry?"_

  _"Hmm. Not so much as Maddy, I think. But yes. You are angry at the world."_

  _"That's a very general statement, ma'am, and I'm sure it probably encompasses a great many young people_ ," Melanie noted, trying to be respectful. Besides, it wasn't really the world she was angry at.

  _"I'm bleeding on you, dear. Call me Elena."_

  _"Melanie,"_ she replied.

  _"Thank you for all your assistance, dear Melanie._ "

 Melanie had no idea how to respond to being thanked for swathing Elena's torso with a bloody sweater. Fortunately the ambulance medics came hurrying out of the stairway. Elena was hustled onto a stretcher, while Melanie successfully argued that she was quite capable of walking, thank you. She even managed not to curse or swear or threaten to disembowel anyone.

 Elena would be proud.

 ***

 Elena didn't have any relatives in the area, or possibly at all still living, it hadn't been clear in the bustle of the hospital. What was clear was that Elena had told the doctors she was her niece, probably because it sounded better than "random stranger who ran in off the street."

 Melanie had no idea why Elena said that.

 She _was_ just a random stranger who ran in off the street. Yes, her sweater was a lost cause and her sleeves were splattered with blood, but she had only met Elena because females were to be respected and she'd been in the mood to hit someone.

 And yet as Elena's "niece," the doctors looked to Melanie for the final decision of Elena's treatment, which right now meant surgery the older woman's insurance might not cover.

 "Mine will," Melanie said firmly, because whatever issues she might have with the current direction of the tribe, they would make good on her hospital bill; the tribe was financially secure and had been even before it joined the ninjas and started attacking Hydra's bank accounts. That and she was pretty sure Stark threw money at the ninjas whenever the mood struck him; as an honorary member of the tribe, Pepper let him.

 When the police showed up for a statement, Melanie admitted she had never met Elena before tonight. Charlene said to never tell untruths to law enforcement because when they inevitably learned the truth - and they always learned the truth - it made the law look closer at the liar and that was never a good proposition when one had a secret nature they wanted to keep hidden.

 (If it became necessary, bodies could be made to disappear, but only ever as a last resort.)

 She may, however, have led the officers to believe "Maddy, Elena's childhood friend" was her great-aunt Madeline. It was plausible and possible, if not actually likely. And, admittedly, even discounting the oddities of two year generations, Madeline was not her great-aunt.

 Family lines in the tribe were not given much weight, as everyone was supposed to be considered more of a child of the entire tribe than of the particular woman who birthed them. Members of a given generation were generally closer to each other than they were to those of their individual bloodlines. Family was the tribe, not an individual unit.

 Or at least it had been until one of the fertile mothers hooked up with Morningstar's friend and the interloper basically told the tribe she would erase their existence if that father was killed as per tradition.

 So the traditional method with a proven history of producing proper Amazons was turned on its head.

 Just because that Christian-Avenger bitch stuck her nose into tribal business.

 Okay, so maybe Elena was right about Melanie having some unresolved anger issues.

 Regardless, in lieu of "official" family, the officers let Melanie remain the next-of-kin. Melanie, who as per tradition didn't have any family outside the tribe.

 It kind of . . . felt nice to be called family by someone who didn't judge her on all sorts of issues she had no control over. Not that she didn't love her sisters and her tribe, and Elena really didn't have the first clue about her life, nor could Melanie explain, but it felt nice all the same.

 Also, it meant the three friends who arrived at the hospital and couldn't speak to Elena because she was in surgery all cornered Melanie instead.

 "What happened?" the springy girl asked anxiously. "Is she going to be alright? All they would say was that she was in surgery."

 "And the stabbing. Mugged and stabbed, don't forget that part," the broad, shaggy haired male added.

 "Not helping, Foggy," the thin man scolded as the girl turned to Foggy looking like she either wanted to hit him or cry.

 Despite the genetically imprinted and indoctrinated Amazonian belief that amongst ordinary humans a female was more important than a male, it was the thin man with the dark glasses who drew Melanie's attention.

 "What did happen?" the thin man asked.

 "I heard the fight and ran up. The mugger grabbed her purse and ran, and I stayed with Elena until the ambulance came." It was essentially what she'd told the police.

 "Oh my God," the girl breathed. Then, in a more normal, if strained, voice, "Do you know if she's going to be alright?"

 "She was still conscious when they wheeled her in for surgery," Melanie offered. Kathy always said that staying conscious was important; it was why Melanie had kept her talking. "Elena's strong." For a non-Amazon, anyway.

 "Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but who are you?" the thin man asked delicately. "The nurse said you were the next of kin."

 "Wait, what? Really?" Foggy said, looking confused. "You're related to Mrs. Cardenas? What - no." He shook his head. "You're not related to Mrs. Cardenas." Then he stopped and turned to his companions. "She's not related to Mrs. Cardenas, is she?"

 "Mrs. Cardenas doesn't have any family as far as I know," the girl agreed.

 "She told the doctors I was her niece, but I'm not actually her niece," Melanie agreed. "But I'm related to someone she knew as a girl. And Elena bled all over me, so I guess that means she considers me family?"

 "She bled all over you?" Foggy repeated, looking a little queasy. "And you - you were injured?" he asked, looking down at the bandages on her arm. She had an IV in the other one.

 She shrugged. "When I knocked him away. It's nothing."

 "You don't have like, HIV or something, do you?" he continued.

 "Foggy!" the girl exclaimed.

 "What? She's old," Foggy defended. "Some weird blood disease could kill her."

 "No weird blood diseases here," Melanie announced, vaguely amused. Amazons weren't _immune_ to getting sick, but their immune systems were pretty hardy. Certainly hardier than a human's. Now if she was one of Lenore's, then there might be problems with her blood. But she was an Amazon, not a vampire, nor any of the other contagious creatures that made up the ninja population.

 "That's good. Sorry, I've been known to babble when I'm nervous," Foggy said apologetically.

 "That happens," Melanie replied.

 "Uh, what's your name?" the girl asked awkwardly.

 "Oh. Sorry. I'm Melanie, Melanie Baker."

 "Melanie," Foggy repeated. "Do you have melon knees?"

 Melanie blinked.

 "Sorry. Ignore me," Foggy said. "Pretend I didn't speak and am not dying of humiliation right now. It's the adrenaline. We got the call that Mrs. Cardenas was in the hospital, and I have this bad habit of responding with inappropriate humor. Ignore me. Please."

 "Melon. Knees," Melanie said slowly.

 "Melanie's melon knees," the girl said, not doing a very good job covering a grin with her hand. "Maybe a little inappropriate, but it is funny. I'm Karen, by the way. Karen Page." She went to offer a hand, but stopped because the IV line was in the way.

 "Foggy Nelson," proclaimed the talkative man. "Of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law."

 "Matt. Murdock," the thin man added. "We work together." There was a beat and then he extended a hand.

 Everyone stared at it a moment, Karen and Foggy looking distinctly awkward. Karen opened her mouth, no doubt to awkwardly explain to Matt, but Melanie shifted the IV line to give her slack to take his hand. She recognized a challenge when she saw one and refused to fail to meet it.

 "Pleasure to meet you."

 And it was a pleasure. Because he looked blind, and acted blind, but Melanie hadn't immediately pinned him as blind - despite the glasses - because there was something that pinged as _off_ to her.

 Kat was wrong. Hell's Kitchen was definitely more interesting than beating up drunken frat boys.


	2. Chapter 2

 "So do you always go in for such suspiciously convenient timing?"

 "Foggy!" Karen gasped.

 "Shutting up now," Foggy said with a wince.

 "Please forgive my friend," Matt-the-maybe-not-so-blind said. "He has this bad habit of putting his foot in his mouth."

 "What I'm sure Foggy _means_ is that we are grateful you got there in time to drive that son of a - ah, that mugger off," Karen said, stern glare faltering under her verbal backtracking. "Mrs. Cardenas is our friend and we're helping her fight F - the people trying to drive her out of apartment - not that that means we don't like her as a person outside of that - but -"

 "I get it," Melanie interrupted. "And I couldn't just let her _die._ I had had a _really_ shitty day before she got stabbed, and her dying would've just been the arsenic icing on an already rotten cake."

 "Interesting image," Foggy said with a frown.

 "Yes, well, thank you," Karen said. "If you hadn't been there -" She broke off before she could finish the thought.

 Melanie grimaced.

 Before things had a chance to get too depressing, one of the doctors came over with good news. Elena was out of surgery, and according to him, it went surprisingly well for a woman of her age, not that that meant there might not be any as-yet unnoticeable complications. But there was no need to worry, she would be staying a few days for observation, and while she wouldn't wake up for another couple of hours, they could go see her if they wanted, no more than two at a time right now please.

 "You can go first, she's friends with your aunt," Karen began.

 "Great-aunt," Melanie corrected. "And I never spoke with her before tonight. You know her better than I do, you should go first."

 "Really? I mean, we have no problem waiting -"

 "No, I'm supposed to leave this in until the bag's done, anyway," Melanie insisted, nodding at the IV. "I can wait."

 Foggy turned to Matt, no doubt to have their own version of the "you first, no you first" polite argument but Matt got there first.

 "Seeing her won't do very much for me," he pointed out wryly. "I'll stay here and keep Melanie company."

 Champion manipulator, that one. Foggy couldn't counter-insist without looking like an asshole arguing with his friend about the friend's disability. The talkative lawyer shut his mouth before he put his foot in it any more. Then he looked at Melanie and frowned. "Of course you will," he said in exasperation. "How do you always know?"

 Matt smiled. "Just lucky that way."

 "How does he know what?" Melanie asked.

 "Uh . . ." Foggy started turning red.

 "He complains it isn't fair that I always find the hot girls first, seeing how I can't properly appreciate their hotness," Matt said with a straight face as Foggy turned into a tomato and Karen covered her laugh with a hand.

 Despite herself, Melanie chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment. You should go see Elena before you dig yourself any deeper."

 "Yeah, I'm - I'm just gonna go."

 Karen laughed again and, shooting a grin at Melanie, followed her friend out.

 "I like your friends," Melanie announced, because, surprisingly, she did. Regular humans, male and all. "I'm curious, though. Why do you let them treat you like you're helpless?"

 "I don't know if you've noticed, but," he pointed to his darkened glasses. "I'm blind."

 "And I'm sure you can pass as sighted if you wanted," she remarked. "Pick a nice sunny day when everyone's wearing sunglasses, and I doubt anyone would notice a thing."

 His answering stillness was almost predatory. It announced she had hit closer than intended and made her _really_ wish she followed the news Kat mentioned because she thought it might be important to know if Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law, could fit the description of the guy in a mask getting blamed for blowing shit up.

 And because she had an overlarge streak of I-don't-give-a-fuck and was reasonably certain both that she could take this guy despite her (already mostly healed) injury and that after the earlier theatrics he wouldn't want to blow his cover, she added "Or at night, if you wore a mask."

 "Why are you here?" he asked, ignoring her jab.

 "Because I interrupted a shithead mugger," she replied easily.

 "Foggy's right. Your timing is suspiciously convenient."

 She snorted. "I got lost," she admitted. "Borrowed a car with a malfunctioning nav-system, couldn't stand the fucking traffic, and stopped to take a call from my sister across the street from Elena's apartment."

 "She was attacked inside the building," he challenged.

 "I heard the attack."

 "From the street? How?"

 "Good ears. The sound of a person getting stabbed is very distinctive."

 "What makes you think I see more than I let on?"

 She laughed. It wasn't necessarily a nice sound. "Oh, I'm sure your eyes are as useless as you act. What you _perceiv_ _e_ is a different matter. Predators don't survive the loss of sight until they learn to compensate."

 "Am I a predator?"

 "Uh, yeah. It's why you challenged me with that handshake. I may not know what you are - yet - but I know you're a predator."

 "What I am."

 "Uh, yeah?" She hadn't meant for it to come out as a question, but he sounded so genuinely confused - either he was really good or he was human and had no idea what she was talking about. Melanie thought ninjas had spend the word pretty widely, but she doubted they'd gotten to everyone. He could be a uneducated newbie with exceptional control. He _could_. Still, "If you were a ninja, I think I'd know," she muttered under her breath.

 "You don't like ninjas?" he asked, a hint of something unidentifiable in his voice.

 "Clearly I'm not the only one with good ears," Melanie retorted, sharper than she'd meant. "And no. Or . . . it's complicated."

 "I'm sure it is."

 "You're one to talk. At least I'm not lying to the people closest to me."

 "And what do you tell them?"

 She snorted derisively. "I don't. Talk. They're all in the same boat as me. Except better adjusted. Or better at faking it."

 The silence - or as silent as it ever got in a busy hospital - settled long enough that Melanie began to think he was going to leave it there. But then, "If you're a predator, what do you hunt?" Matt asked, somehow managing to sound honestly curious.

 "I'll let you know when I work that out," she didn't quite snap. She had a lot of sore spots. "So far it's just been drunken frat boys and shithead muggers, which, frankly, is degrading."

 Melanie was a warrior without a purpose. It sucked.

 ***

 Having both determined the other wasn't a threat, for all that neither was quite what they appeared to be, conversation continued amiably, even if Karen and Foggy thought it was verbal sparring when they returned. They weren't far off, for all that it _was_ amiable.

 Especially when she and Matt sat in with the unconscious Elena and Matt volunteered that her heartbeat sounded strong.

 Melanie had thought (hoped) Elena was going to be fine, but was still greatly relieved to hear that.

 One of the nurses knew Matt. Considering she seemed surprised to see him as a visitor in the hospital, Melanie wasn't going to ask how. When the other three had to leave for the night, Nurse Claire let Melanie stay with Elena on the excuse that, having been attacked and wounded she should be under observation too. It probably helped that Melanie was footing the bill for both herself and Elena, or her insurance was.

 Despite appearances when other nurses made rounds, she only slept half the night. The rest of the hours were spent on her StarkPhone, looking up everything about the masked man in Hell's Kitchen. Between the blindfold-like mask and the way he moved, it did look like Matt was a vigilante in his spare time.

 There were worse hobbies.

 The trio returned in the morning to find Elena awake and chattering with Melanie in Spanish about her girlhood.

 All relief at Elena's recovery dried up like tears in the desert when a nurse came to turn the television on because "Mr. Fisk is talking about your attack!"

 It was an impassioned yet eloquent speech about cleaning up Hell's Kitchen and how good people shouldn't have to live under such deplorable conditions and that he would personally find Elena Cardenas a new place to live where she could be safe because someone had to stand up and improve these people's lives.

 Kat totally called it on him being a pompous windbag.

 How the fuck did he even know about the attack already?

 " _I do not want a new place to live!"_ Elena protested. _"I just want to stay in my home!"_

 "Bastard, " Foggy snarled. "He just wants to get her out of her apartment!"

 "But we still can't prove that," Karen pointed out woefully. "Can this really make her give her home up?"

 Matt nodded, grudgingly. "By making both the attack and the offer public, he comes across as a good guy. After being attacked in her own building, no reasonable person would stay there. If she scorns his offer, to the eyes of the public she becomes unreasonable and perhaps his next step could be to have her committed."

 "He can't do that!" Karen exclaimed.

 Matt shrugged. "Not yet."

 "If we can prove Fisk was behind the attack -" Karen began.

 "Was he?" Foggy asked. "And again, how can we prove that when we haven't been able to tie him to anything?!"

 "You think Fisk arranged for someone to kill Elena?" Melanie asked, words sharper than knives. She _liked_ Elena, for all that the stubborn old woman was vanilla human through and through. _No one_ got to kill Melanie's only non-tribal friend.

 Karen and Foggy looked like they had said to much. "Uh . . ."

 "It's a possibility," Matt admitted. "We believe his agents have been trying to convince her and her neighbors to leave the building."

  _"Elena,"_ Melanie said, trying with limited success to keep the venom from her voice. _"Would you like me to temporarily move in with you?"_

 Karen's eyebrows shot up.

 " _Move in? Don't you have a home or family of your own, dear Melanie? You shouldn't ignore your own life to help with mine."_

 " _My family's halfway across the country,"_ she said, shaking her head. " _I'm only in New York for an interview I never really wanted to go to in the first place. I have a hotel reservation I forgot to cancel last night,"_ she added with belated realization. Whoops.

  _"Hotel? No hotel,"_ Elena insisted. " _You can stay with me._ "

  _"Thank you. You are most generous,"_ Melanie told her as Karen laughed.

 "What?" Foggy asked. "What'd they say?"

 "They called you an avocado," Matt said seriously.

 Karen let out another laugh, before smothering it with her hand and saying, "Melanie's going to live with Mrs. Cardenas, at least until we sort everything out."

 "Huh. Okay," Foggy agreed. "We're counting on you to protect her," he said with an accusatory finger. "Even if that means you have to get between her and another knife. Mrs. Cardenas means a lot to us, so you better not let anything happen to her or - or we'll do something suitably dire to you!"

 Melanie nodded sagely. "I understand," she said, taking the threat in the spirit it was intended even if his words were bluster and the only one who _might_ be a threat to her was Matt. Despite the ineffectual nature of his words, protecting Elena was a noble cause; she could appreciate any male who undertook such a course of action.

 Once Foggy and Karen were distracted talking to Elena, Melanie shot a considering glance at Matt-the-blind-vigilante-predator.

 "About the mugger," she said under her breath. Like a compass needle, his head turned towards her. "I don't think it was random chance he attacked Elena." Her words were barely audible, even to her ears, but she could feel Matt's regard intensify. "When I attacked him, he said something about 'not signing up for this' before fleeing."

 His nod was hardly perceptible.

 "Good ears," she added, the corners of her mouth turning upward.

 "Yes," he agreed aloud before correcting Foggy's terrible attempt at Spanish yet again.

 ***

 Fisk and his sidekick arrived at the hospital later that afternoon. Melanie refused to let Matt and his friends sit in on the meeting because extremely adversarial attack lawyers were not what she had in mind for a first meeting to evaluate a new threat.

 She imagined the sidekick to be what Agent (Director) Coulson would have been if he ever decided to ooze HYDRA self-superiority instead of quiet and determined efficiency.

 The sidekick served as Fisk's buffer because, _wow_ , that man had no idea how to relate to an ordinary person, much less communicate with one whose primary language wasn't even English. Rhetoric-laden pontification didn't translate well.

 The sidekick spoke Spanish, but wasn't impressed by the commentary Melanie worked into her translations.

  _"He thinks he can buy you off by throwing money at you."_

  _"I don't want the money!"_ Elena insisted.

  _"Then you are blinder than Matt because you cannot see the glorious purpose Mr. Fisk has for your neighborhood. You are one of the eggs that must be cracked in order for him to make his omelet for a better future."_

 The sidekick actually winced at that.

  _"Is that not the gist of what he's saying?"_ Melanie demanded. _"Because that's what I'm getting out of this."_

 " _Her building is in poor condition and she is not safe in her own home,"_ the sidekick objected _. "We are trying to rectify this in the most efficient manner."_

  _"And why can't you make repairs without forcing her out of her own home?"_ Melanie countered. _"Wouldn't_ that _be most efficient? A place to call home is one of the most important things you can have,_ _especially when you do not have much_ _. Stop trying to take it from her under the guise of 'improving the lives of citizens.'_ Elena _is one of these citizens and depriving her of her home is_ not _an improvement."_

 As the conversation went increasingly nowhere, Fisk got redder and blotchier and as he got angry his obnoxiously flowery sentences were replaced by barely gilded threats and strong-arm tactics, such as getting the building condemned or having Immigration investigate her neighbors.

 Eventually the sidekick ended the unproductive conversation with a diplomatically ominous "We'll be in touch," and herded Fisk out of the room.

  _"The nerve of that man!"_ Elena exclaimed. _"Thinking he can buy me out of my home when Tully's bullyboys could not force me out!"_

  _"He underestimates the power of a woman who has made up her mind,"_ Melanie replied pleasantly, ending the recording on her phone.

 ***

 "So that went . . . well?" Matt asked.

 "What happened?" Karen asked.

 "What did the son of a bitch say?" Foggy asked.

 "That it's probably a good thing I turned off the recording before you called him a son of a bitch," Melanie replied with a smirk.

  _"Not liking a man is no excuse to insult his mother!"_ Elena scolded.

 Matt snorted while Karen almost choked.

 "What'd she say?" Foggy asked in confusion.

 Melanie swallowed her laugh. "She doesn't like your language." Foggy stared in disbelief. "Don't worry, she scolded mine even as I used my sweater to try to staunch her bleeding."

 "You recorded Fisk?" Karen asked.

 "He didn't say anything overly incriminating, but after announcing to the public he wanted to help her, threatening to call Immigration on her neighbors isn't exactly endearing."

 Matt coughed and nodded ever so slightly toward the door of the hospital room a few seconds before it opened to a short, annoyed blonde in combat boots.

 "Why is there an angry Russian super model in the doorway?"

 "Foggy -" Matt broke off in exasperation, shaking his head.

 "This wasn't what I pictured when Steph said you were in the hospital," Kat remarked, her arms crossed.

 Melanie winced. She had totally forgotten about Kat. "You had Steph track my phone?"

 "Uh, yeah," her sister said, in a voice indicating she thought she was stating the obvious. "I figured that was more efficient than trying to call you back, arguing over the phone, and then having her track you down _anyway_."

 "How much did you hear?"

 "The call finally cut out around the time you were threatening to sic Gabriel on some injured old lady," Kat replied tartly. "I'm guessing that's her? And her . . . friends?"

 "Um, yeah. Elena Cardenas, Matt Murdock, Karen Page, and Foggy Nelson."

 "Foggy?"

 Melanie shrugged. Probably a nickname. "He and Matt are lawyers. They're working on building a case against the, uh, bald, pompous windbag you were telling me about."

 Kat snorted. "You watched the news like I told you to for once?"

 "Yeah, the masked vigilante looked pretty interesting," Melanie added with the barest of glances at Matt.

 Kat caught the glance and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't like superheroes?"

 Melanie grimaced because no, she really wasn't overly fond of superheroes. Three of the seven Avengers barged in and overwrote the traditions of the tribe. "Vigilantes aren't superheroes," she countered. Vigilantes were actually much more her style.

 "Vigilantes are, at best, well-intentioned criminals," Foggy said.

 Melanie barely managed not to wince. How Matt kept up his double life with his best friend making comments like that was beyond her.

 "I know what they say about intentions, but he still saved my life," Karen objected.

 "It's nice to meet you," Matt said, stepping forward and offering a hand, deftly ending that topic of conversation.

 "This is because of that super model comment, isn't it?" Foggy muttered.

 Kat's eyebrow arched back up but she took the proffered hand. "Katarina Wolfe. Most people call me Kat."

 "Kitty?" Foggy asked hopefully.

 "Not if you value your life," Kat shot down. "I'm Mel's cousin."

 "We're close as sisters though," Melanie added, because that's how she thought of the other girls. Most of the other girls.


End file.
